Technology Used to Track African Rebel Attacks

SAN DIEGO, Sept. 29, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — As totalitarian regimes around the world fall through revolutions fueled by modern social networks like Twitter and Facebook, a pair of human rights organizations combating injustice in Central Africa, Invisible Children and Resolve, announced today the launch of the LRA Crisis Tracker – a groundbreaking crisis-mapping platform that broadcasts in real time the attacks perpetrated by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), which continues its 25-year campaign of violence against civilians across the most remote areas of Central Africa.

The LRA, a brutal rebel group responsible for Africa’s longest-running armed conflict, has murdered and mutilated innocent civilians for more than two decades, across four countries. Their self-appointed messiah, Joseph Kony, uses fear and psychological manipulation to control the regime. The key to the LRA’s continued survival has been the kidnapping of children who are conscripted into their ranks, a number that has reached over 30,000 according to UN reports.

The LRA Crisis Tracker makes attack information publicly available through a digital map, a breaking newsfeed, regular data-analysis reports, and a mobile application — all of which can be found at LRACrisisTracker.com. Gathering reports of attacks from a local early-warning radio network supported by Invisible Children, in addition to data sourced from the United Nations, local Non-Government Organizations, and first-hand research, the project immediately becomes the most accurate source of public information on the LRA in existence, resulting in improved efforts to combat LRA atrocities and help communities in need.

“Our successful effort to install an early warning radio network in remote Congo communities was the first step towards filling the void of timely and accurate information about the LRA’s movements,” said Invisible Children’s Chief Executive Officer Ben Keesey. “This melding of old technology with the new will be an enormous breakthrough in the protection of people living in one of the most remote corners in the world.”